V5"5* 


JOHN  &  EDITH  GLASS 


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f     £    ' 


TYP 


HEINRICH  HEINE 


HEINRICH  HEINE 
by 

MICHAEL  MONAHAN 


New  York  and  London 

MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 
1911 


Copyright  1911  by 
Mitchell  Kennerley 


COMPOSITION  BY  THE  VILLAGE  PRESS 
PRESS  WORK  BY  O.  H.  LA  BARRE 


To  my  friend 
RUDOLPH  J.  SCHAEFER 


HEINRICH  HEINE 


A  FANTASY 


ADAME,  if  you  ask  me  who  is  my 
favorite  Poet,  I  who  can  deny  you 
nothing,  must  answer  truly,  he  is 
none  of  my  own  race.  Rare  are  the 
singers  of  Erin,  Madame,  and  their 
Castalia  is  a  fountain  of  tears:  who' 
so  drinks  of  its  sweet  sorrow  shall  never  be  happy 
again.  Like  the  fated  one  who  has  heard  the  Banshee's 
wail,  that  soul  shall  in  the  midst  of  joy  feel  the  near 
presence  of  calamity,  a  boding  at  the  heart  which 
nothing  can  silence.  This  precious  blue  flower  of  sor' 
row  is  proper  to  the  poets  of  my  beloved  Erin.  It 
would  not  flourish  under  less  tender  and  humid  skies, 
for  it  is  born  of  the  rainbow  of  her  smiles  and  tears. 

But,  Madame,  I  have  from  my  youth  read  a  mort  o' 
poetry,  and  have  even  written  a  little  myself — indif- 
ferent bad,  I  may  admit  without  a  qualm,  since  the  sin 
was  committed  long  ago  and  you  were  the  dear  occa' 
sion  of  it.  Alas!  perhaps  it  had  been  better  for  my 
peace  of  mind  had  I  followed  the  counsel  of  my  old 
priestly  instructors,  "to  avoid  all  occasions  of  sin." 

You  know,  Madame,  that  the  making  of  poetry  is 
no  longer  in  fashion,  for  many  reasons,  but  chiefly  be- 
cause the  present  age  is  too  banal  to  inspire  or  receive 
it.  Meantime  we  have  to  deal  with  prose,  or  verse 

5 


that  is  jejune  and  vain.  Have  we  not  good  reason  to 
love  our  sainted  Heinrich,  whose  prose  is  better  than 
most  English  poetry?  In  truth,  if  we  had  not  a  line  of 
his  verse,  his  prose,  brilliant,  various,  alive  with  rare 
imagery,  sparkling  with  the  treasures  of  the  richest 
fancy  ever  given  to  poet,  would  serve  to  crown  him 
with  bays  unfading.  True,  as  he  himself  said  of  the 
gentle  Antommarchi,  it  is  a  stiletto  rather  than  a  style: 
but  what  a  relief  after  the  divine  heaviness  of  Goethe! 
He  struck  fiercely,  did  our  Heinrich,  though  often  he 
wounded  his  own  breast;  and  how  deep  was  his  gift 
of  tears!  What  he  said  of  another  is  truer  still  of  him' 
self:  "He  was  the  petted  darling  of  the  pale  Goddess 
of  Tragedy.  Once  in  a  fit  of  wild  tenderness  she  kissed 
him  as  though  she  would  draw  his  whole  heart 
through  his  lips  with  one  long,  passionate  kiss.  The 
heart  began  to  bleed,  and  suddenly  understood  all  the 
sorrows  of  this  world,  and  was  filled  with  infinite 
sympathy." 

To  know  our  Heine,  Madame,  is  to  renew  one's 
faith  in  the  old  Greek  mythology — a  system  in  which 
the  aristocracy  of  mind  is  finely  manifest — and  to 
worship  Nature  as  she  was  worshipped  in  the  antique 
world.  Nay,  this  modern  Heinrich  Heine  was  but  an 
avatar  of  the  old  Hermes — you  see,  Madame,  the  ini' 
tial  letter  is  the  same  and  yet  the  discovery  is  original 
with  me!  Heine  himself  took  little  care  to  cloak  his 
6 


divine  origin.  Life  and  light  and  love,  while  they  were 
granted  to  him,  these  were  the  elements  of  his  relig' 
ion.  Early  and  late  he  paid  his  vows  to  Venus.  His 
voice  was  a  protest  harking  back  to  old  Olympus 
against  the  new  Religion  of  Pain.  Much  pain  he  came 
to  suffer  himself,  perhaps  through  the  malice  of  the 
later  Dispensation;  but  he  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  son 
of  the  gods.  Surely  the  immortal  mind  was  never 
stronger  in  him  than  when  from  his  "mattress  grave," 
where  he  lay  half  blind  and  paralyzed,  his  uncon- 
quered  spirit  sent  forth  this  message,  matchless  in  its 
pathos  and  irony : 

"What  avails  it  me  that  enthusiastic  youths  and 
maidens  crown  my  marble  bust  with  laurel,  when  the 
withered  hands  of  an  aged  nurse  are  pressing  a  poul' 
tice  of  Spanish  flies  behind  my  ears?  What  avails  it 
me  that  all  the  roses  of  Shiran  glow  and  waft  incense 
for  me?  Alas!  Shiraz  is  two  thousand  miles  from  the 
Rue  de  Y Amsterdam  where  in  the  wearisome  loneli' 
ness  of  my  sick  room  I  get  no  scent,  except  it  be,  per' 
haps,  the  perfume  of  warmed  towels.  Alas!  God's 
satire  weighs  heavy  on  me.  The  great  Author  of  the 
Universe,  the  Aristophanes  of  Heaven,  was  bent  on 
demonstrating  with  crushing  force  to  me  the  little, 
earthly,  German  Aristophanes,  how  my  wittiest  sar- 
casms  were  only  pitiful  attempts  at  jesting  in  compar- 
ison with  his,  and  how  miserably  I  am  beneath  him 
in  humor,  in  colossal  mockery!" 

7 


It  is  strange,  Madame,  how  godly  men  pointed  the 
finger  of  condemnation  at  the  stricken  Poet,  putting 
the  Christian  anathema  upon  him.  Our  poor  Hermes 
was  having  his  Passion,  and  the  sight  of  his  agonies 
filled  the  pietists  with  rapture.  In  mediaeval  times, 
still  regretted  in  some  centres  of  Christian  instruction 
as  the  true  ages  of  faith,  there  was  a  breed  of  zealots 
called  flagellants,  who  used  to  run  madly  over  Europe, 
beating  themselves — and  murdering  the  Jews.  How 
little  essential  change  has  taken  place  in  the  religious 
spirit!  Now  Heine  hated  this  spirit  with  a  hatred  be- 
queathed to  him  by  generations  of  his  hunted  and  sul- 
fering  race,  that  is  to  say,  like  a  Jew;  and  he  also  hated 
it  like  the  true  Hellene  he  was:  so  it  took  what  re- 
venge it  could  upon  him.  The  little  German  prince- 
lings who  put  up  conductors  on  their  funny  little 
courts  and  castles  to  dodge  the  lightnings  of  his  wit, 
also  furnished  some  diversion  in  kind.  For  this  man 
had  written — 
"The  people  have  time  enough,  they  are  immortal: 

Kings  only  are  mortal." 
"The  human  spirit  has  its  rights  and  will  not  be 

rocked  to  sleep  by  the  lullaby  of  church  bells." 
"Men  will  no  longer  be  put  off  with  promissory 

notes  upon  Heaven." 

Madame,  when  I  think  of  my  favorite  Poet,  whom 
I  so  love,  though  of  an  alien  race,  there  comes  to  me 
8 


a  vision  which  I  must  put  into  rude  and  graceless 
words — ah,  how  unworthy  of  him  who  has  painted 
it  for  all  time  with  the  iris'hued  pencil  of  fancy !  Iseem 
to  stand  on  the  banks  of  the  blue  Rhine,  looking  over 
a  fair  prospect  of  vine'covered  champaign;  quaint 
villages  shining  in  the  cheerful  sun,  alternating  with 
the  umbrage  of  forest;  now  and  again  the  river  flash' 
ing  its  silver  upon  the  sight; — and  still  farther  be' 
yond,  a  smiling  expanse  of  flower'decked  meadow  and 
plain.  But  in  all  that  beauteous  picture  my  fancy  seeks 
a  little  garden,  tangled  and  overgrown  with  grasses 
and  wild  flowers,  where  the  gardener's  care  has  not 
been  felt  for  many  a  day.  There,  in  its  most  neglected 
and  obscure  corner,  when  the  moon  is  risen,  I  see  the 
cold  pure  gleam  of  marble;  a  broken  statue  of  the  an' 
tique  Venus,  fallen  from  its  pedestal  and  lying  half 
buried  under  leaves  and  vines.  And  see,  while  I  'wait, 
there  comes  with  fearful,  faltering  step,  a  boy  whose 
pale  young  face  is  fixed  with  the  resolve  of  a  strange 
passion.  Ah  me!  what  ghostly  tryst  is  this?  Casting  a 
swift  glance  around,  he  flings  himself  upon  his  knees 
beside  the  fallen  Queen  of  Love  and  kisses  the  silent 
marble  lips,  murmuring  broken  words  which  are  not 
for  me  to  hear.  Rising,  the  solemn  stars  look  upon  a 
face  transfigured  by  destiny  and  the  sacrament  of  the 
Ideal. 

A  nightingale  sings  .... 


Now  I  see  a  youth  leaving  the  gates  of  an  ancient 
city.  With  knapsack  on  shoulder  he  trudges  away 
joyously,  as  one  to  whom  life  opens  its  fairest  promise. 
It  is  the  boy  of  the  deserted  garden,  but  older  grown, 
and  with  a  light  in  his  eyes  that  owes  nothing  to  the 
flight  of  years.  Gaily  he  begins  his  journey,  Nature 
bidding  him  on  with  her  eternal  smile  that  only  the 
young  understand.  Oh,  never  has  she  companioned  a 
more  memorable  pilgrim!  But  soft!  the  poet's  heart 
within  him  speaks:  "It  is  the  first  of  May,  and  spring 
is  pouring  a  foam  of  white  blossoms  like  a  sea  of  life 
over  the  earth.  Green,  the  color  of  hope,  is  every 
where  around  me.  Everywhere  flowers  are  blooming 
like  beautiful  miracles,  and  my  heart  will  bloom  again 
also.  This  heart  is  likewise  a  flower  of  strange  and 
wondrous  sort.  It  is  no  modest  violet,  no  smiling  rose, 
no  pure  lily  which  a  maiden  may  cherish  in  her  white 
bosom;  which  withers  today  and  blooms  again  to' 
morrow.  No,  this  heart  rather  resembles  that  strange 
heavy  flower  from  the  woods  of  Brazil  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  legend,  blooms  but  once  in  a  century  .  .  . 
No,  Agnes,  this  flower  blooms  not  often,  nor  without 
effort,but  now  it  moves,  and  swells,  and  bursts  in  my 
bosom  ....  My  love  has  burst  its  bud  and  shoots  up- 
ward  in  eternal  dithyrambs  of  poesy  and  joy!" 

After  an  interval  I  see  the  wayfarer  again,  pausing 
at  a  stately  old  house  in  Hamburg,  where  kind  wel- 
10 


come  is  given  him;  kindest  greeting  of  all  by  a  fair 
young  girl  whose  dove-like  eyes,  mirroring  a  truthful 
soul,  rest  upon  him  with  a  certain  pity.  Ah,  how  he 
trembles  at  her  most  careless  touch,  how  his  glance 
follows  her  every  motion,  and  when  she  is  passive, 
rivets  itself  upon  her  like  a  devotee  before  a  shrine! 

They  are  in  a  deep  garden,  these  two,  where  the 
scent  of  flowers  is  heavy  on  the  air.  It  is  a  sweet  hour, 
breathing  yet  the  full  fragrance  of  a  perfed:  day.  But 
the  moon  mounting  up  sends  a  long  arrow  of  light 
across  the  shimmering  foliage,  touching  the  girl's  pale 
cheek  with  the  pure  glory  of  marble.  The  youth  has 
taken  her  hands  while  she  turns  away  her  head,  as  if 
loath  to  hear  his  impassioned  speech.  These  words  at 
length  float  to  me  on  the  garden  scents,  bringing  death 
in  life  and  an  immortal  despair  to  one  that  hears — "I 
love,  I  love  thee,  Cousin  Amelie.  And  what  sayest 
thou  to  me?" 

"Alas,  Cousin,  it  must  not  be!"  .  .  . 

A  nightingale  sings. 

The  years  take  wing  with  the  swiftness  of  a  dream 
and  now  I  stand  in  a  great  hall  filled  with  the  trophies 
of  art  gathered  from  all  ages  and  climes  to  make  the 
priceless  spoil  of  an  imperial  city.  Everywhere  the  di- 
vinity of  marble,  pulseless  and  serene,  while  beyond 
these  sacred  walls  the  din  of  vulgar  life  rises  imperti- 
nent. And  lo!  there  in  sovereign  state,  upon  a  lofty 

ii 


pedestal,  I  see  the  antique  Venus  of  the  neglected  gar- 
den by  the  Rhine,  where  the  boy  kept  his  tryst  with 
the  Ideal.  The  divinities  make  no  sign,  but  well  I  know 
her  for  the  same  that  in  old  time  with  many  a  witch' 
ing  guise  succored  her  mortal  son  Aeneas. 
§)uid  natum  totiens^  crudelis  tu  quoque, 
Falsis  ludis  imaginibus? 

Her  beauteous  arms  are  gone,  that  erst  encircled 
gods  and  godlike  men,  yet  as  the  past  was  hers,  the 
future  shall  be  also.  Time  has  wrought  her  this  maim, 
jealous  of  her  superior  sway,  and  she  has  suffered  oth- 
er  wrongs  from  the  barbarians  who  have  sacked 
Olympus,  building  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  fanes 
their  cross-bearing  temples  that  last  but  a  thousand 
years:  yet  is  she  still  divinely  content,  though  her 
shrines  have  long  been  dust  and  Paphos  with  all  its 
rosy  rites  is  become  a  name.  For  her  rule  endureth 
ever  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

And  if  you  ask  a  proof,  see  now  that  haggard,  bro' 
ken  man  who  drags  himself  wearily  to  the  feet  of  the 
immortal  Goddess.  It  is  he,  the  youth  of  long  ago,  who 
kissed  her  marble  lips  and  gave  his  soul  unto  her  keep- 
ing.  Alas!  how  cruelly  have  the  years  dealt  with  him: 
yet  he  looks  up  to  her  with  a  rapture  of  unchanged 
worship  and  love.  O  miracle  of  faith,  in  which  the  fi- 
nite rises  to  the  infinite,  the  mortal  blends  with  the 
immortal! — see  how  she  returns  his  gaz,e,  with  a  ful- 
ness of  divine  compassion,  as  if  to  say: 

12 


"Thou  seest  I  have  no  arms  and  may  not  help  thee!" 
Then  instantly  methought  the  walls  and  statues 

vanished,  leaving  these  two  alone  in  the  garden  where 

I  first  saw  them  .... 
And  a  nightingale  sang! 


THE  POET'S  LIFE 


HEINRICH  HEINE 


EINRICH  Heine  was  born  Decem- 
ber 12,  1799,  in  the  city  of  Dussel' 
dorf  on  the  Rhine.  For  a  long  time 
the  accepted  date  of  his  birth  was 
January  i,  1800,  and  the  poet  refused 
to  corredt  the  error,  saying  he  was 
unquestionably  one  of  the  first  men  of  the  Nineteenth 
century.  Also  let  it  be  set  down  here,  he  was  born  a 
Jew — a  statement  which  would  have  sounded  worse 
then  than  it  does  now,  though  in  this  culminating 
Christian  age  there  is  still  room  for  improvement.  But 
let  us  give  thanks — all  of  us,  Jews  and  Gentiles — we 
have  come  a  long  way! 

Heine  imbibed  in  his  cradle  and  during  his  early 
years  a  full  share  of  the  Juden-Schmerz,  the  great  sor' 
row  of  Israel.  One  of  his  biographers  describes  him  as 
"in  soul  an  early  Hebrew,  in  spirit  an  ancient  Greek, 
in  mind  a  republican  of  the  Nineteenth  century." 
There  is  an  apostasy  to  be  charged  to  him — of  which 
we  shall  speak  later  on — and  it  must  be  admitted  that, 
Jew  himself,  he  did  not  spare  his  own  race  the  scor- 
pion sting  of  his  sarcasm.  But  a  Jew  he  was  in  his  better 
moods,  in  his  seasons  of  calm  and  power;  and  a  Jew  he 
remained  to  the  last.  It  is  good  to  recall  here  his  noble 
confession:  "The  writer  of  these  lines  may  be  proud 
b  15 


that  his  ancestors  came  of  the  noble  House  of  Israel, 
that  he  is  a  descendant  of  the  martyrs  who  gave  a  God 
and  a  moral  code  to  the  world,  and  who  have  fought 
and  suffered  on  every  battlefield  of  thought." 

Heine's  childish  years  and  boyhood  were  as  happy 
as  those  of  a  poet  should  be.  Of  this  enchanted  period 
he  has  left  us  a  characteristic  and  delightful  record.  In- 
deed, he  has  told  us  the  story  so  well  that  no  one  may 
presume  to  tell  it  after  him  without  borrowing  the 
poet's  own  words.  For  the  old  German  Fatherland, 
however  its  political  systems  might  provoke  his  sca- 
thing irony,  for  his  native  city  of  Dusseldorf,  he  kept 
during  his  long  exile  in  after  years,  the  tenderest  affec- 
tion. His  mind  was  at  home  on  the  Seine;  his  heart  on 
the  Rhine.  There,  as  he  wittily  said,  were  seven  towns 
to  dispute  the  honor  of  being  his  birthplace — Schilda, 
Krahwinkel,  Polkwits,  Bockum,  Dulken,  Gottingen 
and  Schoppenstedt.  There  his  poet  soul  first  awoke  to 
life  and  love  and  beauty.  There  he  lisped  that  musical 
German  speech  which  his  genius  was  to  fuse  into  lyric 
forms  that  will  keep  his  memory  alive  in  German 
hearts  so  long  as  the  Rhine  shall  run  its  course  toward 
the  sea. 

Heine's  father,  Samson  Heine,  was  an  amiable, 
handsome  man,  and  the  poet  always  preserved  a  lov- 
ing recollection  of  him;  but,  like  most  great  men,  he 
was  his  mother's  son.  What  lover  of  the  poet  needs 
16 


to  be  told  much  of  the  "old  woman  who  lives  by  the 
Dammthor;"  or  of  the  mutual  love  extending  over  so 
many  years,  unchilled,  unchanged;  or  of  the  tender 
deception  which  the  stricken  poet  practised  from  his 
mattress-grave,  keeping  her  in  ignorance  of  his  awful 
fate?  To  me  it  is  the  finest  chapter  in  Heine's  life,  the 
one  to  which  we  turn  for  rest  when  wearied  with  his 
constant  feuds,  brilliantly  as  he  fought  them. 

Heine's  mother  had  been  a  Miss  Betty  Von  Geld' 
ern.  She  might  have  made  a  better  marriage  in  a  world' 
ly  way,  but  it  would  hardly  have  resulted  in  so  good 
a  poet.  She  deserved  well  of  her  gifted  son  and  he  of 
her.  She  brought  him  into  the  world;  he  immortalized 
her.  Mother  Heine  lived  a  hundred  years  before  the 
New  Woman,  and  yet  she  made  few  mistakes.  One  of 
these  'was,  however,  rather  serious — that  Heinrich 
could,  would  or  should  be  any  thing  save  a  poet.  Hav 
ing  been  well  educated  herself— she  read  Latin,  I  fear, 
better  than  the  New  Woman — Mother  Heine  fol' 
lowed  with  eager  interest  the  growth  of  her  son's 
mind.  "She  played  the  chief  part  in  my  development," 
he  tells  us;  "she  made  the  programme  of  all  my  stud' 
ies,  and,  even  before  my  birth,  began  her  plans  for  my 
education."  There  were  other  children  to  divide  her 
care,  but  her  darling  was  the  eldest  born,  the  glory  of 
•whose  genius  she  lived  to  see,  and  whom  at  last  she 
followed  to  the  grave. 

Literature,  regarded  as  a  profession,  was  held  in 


small  favor  by  the  Heine  family,  and  especially  by 
Uncle  Salomon  Heine,,  the  great  banker  of  Hamburg, 
of  whom  we  hear  so  much  in  the  Hfe'Story  of  the  poet. 
Uncle  Salomon,  indeed — although  he  helped  Hein- 
rich  from  time  to  time  and  never  wholly  abandoned 
him,  except  in  making  his  will — esteemed  the  first 
lyrist  of  Germany  as  little  better  than  the  fool  of  the 
family.  There  was  another  uncle  on  the  mother's  side, 
Simon  Von  Geldern,  who  seems  to  have  had  a  liter- 
ary turn,  and  who  gave  the  young  poet  much  secret 
encouragement.  Having  little  money  to  back  his  opin^ 
ions,  Uncle  Simon  was  distinctly  inferior  as  a  moral 
force  to  Uncle  Salomon;  and,  therefore,  he  for  the 
most  part,  kept  his  heretical  views  to  himself.  But  the 
Muse  of  Literary  History  has  done  tardy  justice  to 
the  poor  relation,  and  Uncle  Simon  Von  Geldern  will 
always  have  his  place  in  the  chronicle* 

However,  I  am  inclined  to  think  more  kindly  of 
Salomon  Heine  than  are  some  of  the  poet's  biograph- 
ers. It  is  scarcely  a  just  cause  of  reproach  that  Uncle 
Salomon,  the  Jew  prince  of  Hamburg  (as  he  was 
called)  should  have  rated  commercial  values  so  high 
and  literary  values  so  low.  He  had  known  the  Ghetto, 
with  its  privations,  its  galling  humiliations,  its  de- 
grading stigma  of  inferiority.  Rising  at  length  by  his 
own  exertions  to  wealth  and  power,  it  was  hardly  to 
be  expected  that  he  should  view  with  tolerance  the 
adoption  of  so  unlucrative  a  pursuit  as  poetry  by  a 
18 


member  of  his  family.  Yet,  as  I  have  said,  though  he 
looked  askance  at  his  scribbling,  ne'er'do-well-neph' 
ew,  he  never  absolutely  gave  him  the  cold  shoulder. 
The  provocation  was  often  strong  enough,  I  promise 
you.  Once  Heinrich  went  over  to  London  on  a  sight- 
seeing tour,  Uncle  Salomon  furnishing  the  needful. 
Besides  an  allowance  for  traveling  expenses,  Uncle 
Salomon  entrusted  the  poet  with  a  draft  for  ^400, 
which  Heinrich  was  on  no  account  to  cash,  but  mere' 
ly  to  preserve  and  if  need  were,  exhibit,  as  establish' 
ing  the  credit  of  the  family.  Heinrich  never  could  be 
got  to  look  at  money  in  that  way.  His  rule  through 
life  was  to  spend  his  money  and  every  other  good 
thing  as  soon  as  he  came  into  possession  of  it — often 
indeed,  by  anticipation;  so  you  may  be  sure  it  didn't 
take  him  long  to  realize  on  the  valuable  bit  of  paper. 
Uncle  Salomon  was  furious,  and  I  fancy  many  a 
Christian  uncle  would  not  have  spared  his  wrath  in 
a  like  extremity.  To  his  angry  and  just  reproaches  the 
"fool  of  the  family"  coolly  answered:  "My  dear  un' 
cle,  do  you  really  expedt  to  have  to  pay  nothing  for 
the  honor  of  bearing  my  name?" 

Heine  very  early  felt  the  French  influence  which 
became  so  controlling  an  element  in  his  political  phi' 
losophy  and  which  gave  so  decided  a  bent  to  his  liter' 
ary  genius.  History  put  on  her  seven'league  boots 
while  little  Heinrich  played  by  the  Dussel,  or  in  the 
bi  19 


green  alleys  of  the  Schlossgarten.  Just  a  month  before 
the  poet  was  born,  in  the  memorable  year  1799,  his 
great  hero  Napoleon  had  achieved  his  famous  coup 
d'etat  of  the  i8th  Brumaire.  The  Revolution  knelt  be- 
fore its  master,  and  then  history-making  proceeded  in 
earnest.  In  1806 — Heinrich  is  now  seven  years  old 
and  the  First  Consul  is  Emperor — Duke  William  took 
leave  of  the  Duchy  of  Berg  and  the  dashing  Joachim 
Murat  entered  as  Regent.  The  Rhine  Confederation 
had  been  formed  and  the  German  States  beaten  one 
after  another.  Indeed,  so  many  great  events  were  hap- 
pening at  this  time — History  paying  off  her  arrears — 
that  a  clear  head  has  much  ado  to  follow  them  in  their 
right  order  and  relation.  Happily  that  is  not  our  pres- 
ent business.  Amid  all  this  marching  and  counter- 
marching, allons'Wg  and  alliancing,  bayoneting  and 
bulleting,  partitioning  and  protocoling,  little  Hein- 
rich played  with  his  mates  in  the  quaint  streets  of  Dus- 
seldorf,  or  at  home  tumbled  over  his  toy  castles  as 
merrily  as  the  French  armies  busy  at  the  same  work 
in  kind. 

But  one  never-to-be-forgotten  day  the  statue  of  the 
Elector  Jan  Wilhelm  was  missed  from  the  town  square 
and  the  French  troops  marched  in,  the  "drum-major 
throwing  his  gold-knobbed  baton  as  high  as  the  first 
story,"  while  the  drunken  cripple  Gumperts  rolled  in 
the  gutter,  singing: 

Ca  ira!  Ca  ira! 
ao 


A  wonderful  day  that  was  to  the  little  boy,  his 
eager  heart  aflame  with  the  new  marvel  of  all  this  fan' 
fare  and  soldiering.  And  wonderful  days  were  to 
come,  listening  to  Monsieur  LeGrand,  the  French  tarn' 
hour — "so  long  billeted  upon  us,  who  looked  like  a 
very  devil  and  yet  was  such  an  angelic  character  and 
such  an  incomparable  drummer!"  We  all  know  how 
he  taught  the  young  Heinrich  with  his  rat'a'tat'tat 
some  lessons  of  modern  history  in  which  he,  the  brave 
LeGrand,  had  borne  a  part;  and  we  have  been  glad  to 
learn  in  our  turn.  Nay,  we  may  yet  hearken  with  pleas' 
ure  to  the  recitals  of  Monsieur  LeGrand. 

"I  saw  the  march  across  the  Simplon,  the  Emperor 
in  front,  with  the  brave  Grenadiers  climbing  up  be' 
hind,  while  the  startled  eagles  screamed  and  the  glac' 
iers  thundered  in  the  distance;  I  saw  the  Emperor 
clasping  the  standard  on  the  bridge  of  Lodi;  I  saw  the 
Emperor  in  his  gray  cloak  at  Marengo;  I  saw  the  Em' 
peror  on  horseback  at  the  battle  of  the  Pyramids — 
nothing  but  smoke  and  Mamelukes;  I  saw  the  Emper' 
or  at  Austerlits — twing!  how  the  bullets  whined 
over  the  smooth  ice!  I  saw,  I  heard  thebattle  of  Jena — 
dum,  dum,  dum — I  saw,  I  heard  the  battles  of  Eylau, 
Wagram — no,  I  could  hardly  stand  it.  Monsieur  Le 
Grand  drummed  till  my  own  ear'drum  was  nearly 
cracked." 

But  a  more  wonderful  day  was  yet  to  come,for  His' 
tory  was  all  the  time  getting  on  in  her  seven'league 

21 


boots.  Every  day,  nay,  every  hour,  the  French  were 
upsetting  boundaries  and  generally  making  havoc 
with  the  established  order.  As  in  the  fairy  tale,  the 
Giant — that  is,  the  people, — had  awakened  from  his 
enchanted  sleep,  and  the  whole  world  was  magically 
in  motion.  Murat,  the  bold  Joachim,  exchanged  his 
spurs  for  the  crown  of  Naples.  This  was  in  1808.  King 
Joachim  thereupon  ceded  the  Duchy  of  Berg  to  his 
lord  and  master,  Napoleon,  who  transferred  it  to  his 
brother,  Louis,  King  of  Holland.  The  pendulum  was 
swinging  back  and  the  reign  of  liberty  and  equality 
was  producing  royalties  with  a  vengeance.  But  some 
good  came  out  of  all  this,  and  especially  to  the  long 
persecuted  Jews.  (We  are  not  to  forget  that  Heine  was 
himself  a  Jew.)  In  1812  the  Code  Napoleon  was  ex' 
tended  to  the  German  provinces  under  the  French  in' 
fluence.The  mists  of  the  Middle  Ages  took  flight.  The 
Ghettos  gave  up  their  ghost. 

It  was  in  the  palace  gardens  of  Dusseldorf  that 
young  Heinrich  saw  the  Emperor  for  the  first  time, 
the  only  sovereign  to  whom  his  republican  conscience 
was  ever  to  yield  loyalty.  Years  afterward  he  painted 
the  scene  with  the  strong  hues  of  his  genius,  so  that 
we  may  see  it  through  the  boy's  eager  eyes: 

"  But  what  were  my  feelings  when  I  saw  him  at  last 
with  my  own  eyes — O  beatific  vision — himself,  the 
Emperor! 
22 


"It  was  in  the  allee  of  the  palace  gardens  at  Dussel- 
dorf. 

"As  I  shouldered  my  way  through  the  gaping 
crowd,  I  thought  of  the  deeds  and  battles  which  Mon* 
sieur  LeGrand  had  portrayed  for  me  with  his  drum; 
my  heart  beat  the  grand  march — and  yet  I  thought 
at  the  same  time  of  the  police  regulations  which  or- 
dered that  no  one  should  ride  through  the  allee,  under 
a  penalty  of  five  thalers.  And  the  Emperor  with  his 
retinue  rode  right  through  the  alleel  The  shuddering 
trees  bowed  down  to  him  as  he  passed;  the  sunbeams 
peeped  timidly  through  the  green  foliage,  and  in  the 
blue  heaven  above  there  sailed  into  sight  a  golden 
star.  He  wore  his  plain  green  uniform  and  his  small 
world-famous  cap.  He  rode  a  white  palfrey  which 
stepped  with  such  calm  pride,  with  such  assurance 
and  dignity — had  I  been  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia 
I  should  still  have  envied  that  pony!  Carelessly,  with 
a  loose  seat,  the  Emperor  held  up  the  reins  in  one  hand, 
and  with  the  other  patted  good-naturedly  his  horse's 
neck.  It  was  a  sunlit,  marble  hand,  a  mighty  hand,  one 
of  those  two  hands  that  had  tamed  the  hydra  of  an- 
archy and  quelled  the  feud  of  nations.  His  face  was  of 
the  same  hue  we  see  in  the  marble  busts  of  Greeks  and 
Romans;  the  features  wore  the  same  expression  of 
calm  dignity  that  the  ancients  have,  and  on  them  was 
written,  'Thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods  than  me  f 

"The  Emperor  rode  calmly  down  the  allee.  Behind 


him,  on  snorting  chargers,  bedizened  with  gold  and 
jewels,  rode  his  retinue.  The  drums  beat,  the  trumpets 
blared.  At  my  side  mad  Aloysius  spun  round  and 
round,  and  clattered  out  the  names  of  his  generals; 
close  by  drunken  Gumperts  bellowed,  and  the  people 
shouted  with  a  thousand  voices,  'Long  live  the  Em- 
peror'/" 

When  Heine  was  sixteen  his  family  thought  to  de- 
cide  his  vocation  for  him,  and  so  he  was  sent  to 
Frankfort'on'Main,  'where  there  was  a  ghetto,  the 
sweet  relish  of  which  the  poet  never  forgot. 

He  stayed  there  only  a  few  weeks,  and  then  Uncle 
Salomon,  at  Hamburg,  tried  his  hand  at  making  some' 
thing  other  than  a  poet  out  of  his  nephew.  Had  Un' 
cle  Salomon  possessed  a  little  more  imagination,  he 
might  have  spared  himself  a  humiliating  failure.  It  was 
impossible  to  drum  the  commercial  ABC  into  Hein- 
rich's  wayward  head.  Even  his  watch,  as  he  tells  us, 
had  a  habit  of  going  wrong  and  getting  into  the  hands 
of  the  Jews.  To  make  matters  worse,  the  graceless 
youth,  for  whose  future  Uncle  Salomon  would  not 
have  given  a  sixpence,  committed  the  folly  of  falling 
in  love  with  Uncle  Salomon's  beautiful  daughter, 
Amelie.  If  Heine's  cousin  had  been  a  less  prudent  and 
sensible  girl,  we  should  probably  have  lost  a  deal  of 
fine  poetry,  for,  of  course  they  would  have  got  mar' 
ried  somehow,  and  Uncle  Salomon  would  have  paid 
24 


the  bills  until  the  end  of  the  chapter.  But  Amelie  was 
much  of  her  father's  mind.  She  gave  her  cousin  small 
encouragement,  and — a  more  cruel  thing — even  told 
him  she  did  not  like  his  poetry.  In  the  end,  and  that 
was  very  soon,  she  married  a  young  man  of  approved 
Hebrew  descent  and  strictly  commercial  aspirations, 
whose  name  I  haven't  taken  the  trouble  to  remember. 
The  critics  and  biographers  have  generally  deduced 
from  this  little  passage  in  Heine's  life  that  he  carried 
through  all  the  after  years  an  incurable  wound  of  the 
heart.  It  is  vastly  unpopular  to  doubt  this,  and  ungal' 
lant  in  the  bargain;  but,  though  Heine  suffered  acutely 
from  the  disappointment  of  his  first  pure  love,  and 
though  it  yielded  him  many  a  lyric  of  exquisite  pain, 
I  am  afraid  it  argues  a  misreading  of  the  facts  to  impute 
to  him  a  lifelong  Wertherian  anguish. 

Leaving  Hamburg  with  this  bitter-sweet  memory 
and  finding  in  his  sense  of  grief  and  loss,  food  for  the 
lyrical  impulse  now  maturing  with  his  powers,  Heine 
returned  home  to  prepare  himself  for  a  profession.  He 
entered  the  University  of  Bonn  in  1819. 

Napoleon  being  now  at  St.  Helena,  the  hand  was 
set  back  on  the  clock.  So  far  as  lay  in  its  power,  the 
Holy  Alliance  had  undone  the  work  of  the  Revolu* 
tion.  A  Jew  might  not  practise  the  profession  of  law — 
no  profession,  indeed,  save  medicine — in  the  King- 
dom of  Prussia;  so  nothing  was  left  for  Heine  but  to 


apostatize  or  lay  aside  his  ambition — which  indeed 
was  rather  that  of  his  family — to  become  do 51  or  juris. 
Urged  by  his  relatives  and  friends  (who  saw  no  harm 
in  thus  evading  a  barbarous  prescription)  he  chose 
the  former  alternative.  For  this  he  has  been  unspar- 
ingly,  though  it  seems  to  me  unjustly,  condemned  by 
the  rigorists  of  his  own  race.  Heine  himself  affected  to 
regard  lightly  the  circumstance  of  his  quasi-convex 
sion  to  Lutheranism.  With  incomparable  irony  he 
tells  us:  "That  I  became  a  Christian  is  the  fault  of 
those  Saxons  who  changed  sides  so  suddenly  at  Leip- 
zig; or  else  of  Napoleon  who  need  never  have  gone 
to  Russia;  or  of  the  school'master  who  taught  him 
geography  at  Brienne  and  neglected  to  tell  him  that 
it  was  cold  in  Moscow  in  winter.  If  Montalembert 
became  minister  and  could  drive  me  away  from  Paris, 
I  would  turn  Catholic.  Paris  is  well  worth  one  mass ! " 
Within  a  very  few  years  the  enlightened  govern- 
ment of  Prussia  paid  this  notable  convert  to  the  state 
religion  the  handsome  compliment  of  interdicting  his 
books.  It  is  certain  that  Heine  always  bitterly  regret- 
ted the  concession  he  had  made  to  a  mediaeval  preju- 
dice. However  lightly  one  may  hold  a  traditional 
faith,  one  may  choose  an  easier  method  of  parting 
with  it  than  by  an  act  of  formal  and  public  apostasy. 
No  man  cared  less  than  Heine  for  the  anathemas  of 
other  men,  yet  he  remained  keenly  sensitive  to  re- 
proaches on  this  score.  The  degree  of  doftor  juris 
26 


which  cost  him  so  dear  brought  him  nothing.  It  was 
from  Gottingen,  by  the  way,  he  received  this  learned 
distinction — Gottingen  which  he  has  visited  with 
some  of  the  happiest  strokes  of  his  satirical  genius. 

Heine  was  a  brilliant  but  irregular  student.  He  was 
reading  and  rhyming  poetry  when  he  ought  to  have 
been  busy  with  the  Pandects. 

So  acute  and  native  is  the  quality  of  his  wit  that 
the  chronicle  of  his  student  days  may  be  read  to'day 
with  interest  as  fresh  as  when  it  was  first  given  to  the 
world.  Horace's  qualis  ab  incepto  is  eminently  true  of 
Heine — he  seems  to  have  begun  at  once  with  an  as' 
sured  and  individual  style. 

Prosing  with  professors  over  the  Justinian  Code 
came  to  an  end  at  last.  In  his  doctoral  thesis  Heine 
made  a  slip  on  the  noun  caput — the  thesis  was,  of 
course,  in  Latin — and  always  remembered  it  with  a 
twinge — which  shows  he  was  not  entirely  devoid  of 
the  pedantry  of  the  place  that  he  has  so  amusingly  sat' 
irized.  He  had  been  previously  rusticated  from  the 
University  on  account  of  a  duel — his  personal  cour- 
age was  then  and  ever  after  undoubted — and  the  pun- 
dits  of  the  institution  looked  -with  small  favor  on  the 
poetising  young  Jew.  Yet  in  the  realm  of  letters,  Got' 
tingen  is,  and  ever  will  be,  better  known  from  the 
residence  of  H£ine  than  from  any  other  circumstance 
in  its  venerable  history.  Hegel,  by  the  way,  owes  to 
Heine  the  sole  humorous  association  with  his  name. 

27 


To  the  readers  of  the  Har^reise  I  need  not  recall  the 
famous  description  of  the  town  of  Gottingen,  "cele- 
brated  for  its  sausages  and  University;"  or  the  happy 
application  of  the  term  Philistine,  which  has  passed  in" 
to  universal  currency. 

It  was  in  1 824  that  Heine  shook  the  dust  of  Gottin- 
gen  from  his  feet  and  carried  away  much  of  its  learned 
dust  in  his  brain.  Three  years  earlier  his  great  idol  Na- 
poleon had  died  at  St.  Helena — "the  saviour  of  the 
world"  (was  Heine's  characteristic  comment)  "who 
suffered  under  Hudson  Lowe,  as  it  is  written  in  the 
gospels  of  Las  Casas,  of  O'Meara  and  of  Antommar- 
chi."  And  with  what  is  perhaps  the  bitterest  stroke 
of  his  unequaled  irony,  he  added:  "Strange,  the  great- 
est adversaries  of  the  Emperor  have  already  found  an 
awful  fate.  Londonderry  cut  his  throat;  Louis  the 
1 8th  rotted  on  his  throne,  and  Professor  Saalfeld  is  still 
professor  at  Gottingen!" 

Seven  years,  rich  with  the  outpouring  of  his  genius 
followed  from  the  day  Heine  left  the  classic  precindts 
of  Gottingen  until  he  turned  his  face  toward  France 
and  Paris.  In  the  interval  he  had,  in  spite  of  the  reign- 
ing sovereignty  of  the  great  Goethe,  established  his 
title  as  the  first  lyric  poet  of  Germany. 

Heine  was  proud  to  call  himself  a  son  of  the  Revo- 
lution, and  such  he  was,  in  poetic  as  well  as  political 
impulse.  But  he  was  also  a  son  of  the  free  Rhine  and 
28 


would  make  good  his  claim  to  the  title.  No  man  more 
fully  appreciated  the  sacrifices  made  by  the  French 
people  in  the  cause  of  human  liberty.  As  a  Jew,  the  de- 
scendant of  a  hated  and  persecuted  race,  he  felt  a  spe- 
cial obligation  of  gratitude. 

Criticism  can  take  no  account  of  the  blemishes  in 
Heine's  character  as  a  German  or  as  a  Jew.  The  meas- 
ure of  his  literary  accomplishment  raises  him  above 
these  things.  This  is  the  more  just  since  Heine  as  a  poet 
is  eminently  cosmopolitan.  The  note  of  provinciality 
is  not  in  him.  And  this  distinction  belongs  only  to 
poets  of  the  first  class. 

Notwithstanding,  it  is  of  great  interest  to  study 
Heine  in  his  relations  of  sympathy,  his  spiritual  or  ra- 
cial touch  with  his  own  people.  I  have  said  that  he 
shared  deeply  in  the  Juden-Schmen;,  the  great  sorrow 
of  Israel.  "The  history  of  the  Jews,"  he  tells  us,"  is  trag- 
ical and  yet  if  one  were  to  write  about  this  tragedy, 
he  would  be  laughed  at.  This  is  the  most  tragic  of  all.1" 

Heine  wrote  much  and  variously  on  this  subject, 
constantly  recurring  to  it,  now  with  the  broadest 
comic  humor,  now  with  awful  pathos,  and  again  dis- 
sembling his  own  pain  with  bitter  irony,  as  in  his  note 
on  Shakespeare's  Shy  lock: 

"I,  at  least  a  wandering  dreamer  of  dreams,  looked 
round  me  on  the  Rialto  to  see  if  I  could  find  Shy  lock. 
I  had  something  to  tell  him  that  would  have  pleased 
him — which  was  that  his  cousin  Monsieur  de  Shy 

29 


lock  in  Paris,  had  become  the  proudest  baron  in  all 
Christendom  and  had  received  from  their  Catholic 
Majesties  the  Order  of  Isabella,  which  was  originally 
established  to  celebrate  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  and 
Moors  from  Spain.  But  I  found  him  not  in  the  Rialto, 
so  I  determined  to  look  for  my  old  acquaintance  in  the 
synagogue. 

"Though  I  looked  all  round  in  the  synagogue  of 
Venice,  I  could  nowhere  see  his  face.  And  yet  it 
seemed  to  me  he  must  be  there,  praying  more  fervent' 
ly  than  any  of  his  fellowbelievers  -with  stormy,  wild 
passion — yea  with  madness! — to  the  throne  of  Jeho' 
vah,  the  severe  divine  Monarch.  I  saw  him  not.  But 
toward  evening,  when  according  to  the  belief  of  the 
Jews,  the  gates  of  Heaven  are  closed  and  no  further 
prayer  can  enter,  I  heard  a  voice  in  which  tears  flowed 
as  they  were  never  wept  from  human  eyes.  There  was 
a  sobbing  which  might  have  moved  a  stone  to  pity — 
there  were  utterances  of  agony  such  as  could  only 
come  from  a  heart  which  held  within  itself  all  the 
martyrdom  that  an  utterly  tormented  race  had  en' 
dured  for  eighteen  centuries.  It  was  the  death-rattle 
of  a  soul  which  nearing  its  death,  sinks  to  the  ground 
before  the  gates  of  Heaven.  And  this  voice  seemed  to 
be  well  known  to  me — as  if  I  had  heard  it  long,  long 
ago,  when  it  wailed  just  as  despairingly,  'Jessica,  my 
child!'" 

Now  for  the  other  mood,  and  let  us  not  forget  that 
30 


with  Heine  the  mood  of  the  moment  is  supreme.  We 
have  but  to  take  what  the  gods  give  us  and  be  thank' 
ful.  Also  the  strange  mingling  of  irony,  truth,  humor 
and  pathos  is  the  chief  mark  of  our  poet's  genius — the 
one  thing  in  'which  he  is  least  imitable. 

"There  lives  at  Hamburg,  in  a  one^roomed  lodging 
in  the  Baker's  Broad  Walk,  a  man  whose  name  is 
Moses  Lump.  All  the  week  he  goes  about  in  the  rain 
and  wind,  with  his  pack  on  his  back,  to  earn  his  few 
shillings.  But  when  on  Friday  night  he  comes  home, 
he  finds  the  candlestick  with  seven  candles  lighted, 
and  the  table  covered  with  a  fine,  white  cloth.  And 
he  puts  away  from  him  his  pack  and  his  cares,  and  he 
sits  down  to  table  with  his  squinting  wife,  and  yet 
more  squinting  daughter,  and  eats  fish  with  them — 
fish  that  has  been  dressed  in  beautiful  white  garlic 
sauce;  says  therewith  the  grandest  psalms  of  King  Da' 
vid;  rejoices  with  his  whole  heart  over  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  Children  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt;  rejoices, 
too,  that  all  the  wicked  ones  who  have  done  hurt  to 
the  Children  of  Israel  have  ended  by  taking  them' 
selves  off;  that  King  Pharaoh,  Nebuchadnezzar,  Ha' 
man,  Antiochus,  Titus,  and  all  such  villains  are  dead, 
while  he,  Moses  Lump,  is  yet  alive  and  eating  fish  with 
his  wife  and  daughter!  He  contemplates  his  candles 
with  satisfaction,  but  on  no  account  will  he  snuff  them 
for  himself.  And  I  can  tell  you,  if  the  candles  burn  a 
little  dim,  and  the  snuffers'woman,  whose  business  it 
c  31 


is  to  snuff  them,  is  not  at  hand,  and  if  Rothschild  the 
Great  were  at  that  moment  to  come  in — with  his  bro- 
kers, bill'discounters,  agents,  and  chief  clerks  -with 
whom  he  conquers  the  world — and  were  to  say, '  Mo- 
ses Lump,  ask  me  what  favor  you  will  and  it  shall  be 
granted,' — I  am  convinced  Moses  Lump  would  quiet- 
ly answer,  'Rothschild,  snuff  me  those  candles!'  And 
Rothschild  the  Great  would  exclaim,  'If  I  were  not 
Rothschild,  I  would  be  Moses  Lump !' ' 

Heine's  political  sense  was  as  sane  and  shrewd  as 
his  -wit  was  keen.  He  has  given  us  no  better  example 
of  it  than  the  following : "  An  Englishman  loves  Free- 
dom as  he  loves  his  lawfully  wedded  wife.  He  regards 
her  as  a  possession,  and  if  he  does  not  treat  her  with 
special  tenderness,  yet,  if  need  be,  he  knows  how  to 
defend  her.  A  Frenchman  loves  Freedom  as  he  does 
his  chosen  bride;  he  will  commit  a  thousand  follies 
for  her  sake.  A  German  loves  Freedom  as  he  does  his 
old  grandmother.  And  yet,  after  all,  no  one  can  tell, 
how  things  may  turn  out.  The  grumpy  Englishman 
in  an  ill  temper  with  his  wife,  is  capable  some  day  of 
putting  a  rope  around  her  neck.  The  inconstant 
Frenchman  may  become  unfaithful  to  his  adored  mis- 
tress and  be  seen  fluttering  about  the  Palais  Royal  af- 
ter another.  But  the  German  will  never  quite  aban- 
don his  old  grandmother.  He  will  always  keep  for  her 
a  nook  by  the  chimney  corner  where  she  may  tell  her 


fairy  tales  to  the  listening  children.  .  .  " 

Save  the  Chinese,  no  people  have  excelled  the  Ger- 
mans in  attachment  to  the  idea  of  kingship  by  divine 
right,  with  its  related  blessing  of  a  hereditary  aristoc- 
racy. It  is  still  believed  that  such  is  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment most  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  Heaven, 
where  once  the  socialists  and  republicans  under  Luci- 
fer caused  a  serious  insurrection,  which  was  put  down 
only  after  the  greatest  trouble  by  Michael,  first  of  all 
legitimists.  Hence  the  peculiar  favor  with  which  the 
good  Lord  is  supposed  to  regard  those  earthly  govern- 
ments patterned  upon  the  model  established  by  Him- 
self. 

This  was  a  favorite  theme  with  our  poet,  who 
hated  dulness  and  pretence,  stupidity  and  intolerance 
wherever  he  found  them,  but  most  bitterly  of  all  in 
the  trappings  of  prescriptive  authority.  No  stronger 
proof  of  German  passivity  could  be  adduced  than  that 
it  seems  to  have  withstood  even  the  poisoned  shafts 
of  Heine's  satire  and  ridicule. 

It  is,  however,  not  unusual  to  find  the  spirit  of  re- 
volt most  keenly  alive  under  a  general  appearance  of 
submission  and  compliance;  so  we  need  not  doubt 
that  there  were  hearts  in  Germany  which  eagerly 
treasured  up  Heine's  burning  words  against  the  me- 
diaeval body-of-death  under  which  the  nation  lay — 
alas!  for  the  greater  part,  still  lies. 

Never  did  our  poet  preach  the  new  gospel  of  dem- 

33 


ocracy  with  keener  effect  than  in  the  following  story 
taken,  as  he  says,  out  of  the  life  of  Charles  V. 

"The  poor  Emperor  was  taken  prisoner  by  his  ene- 
mies and  thrown  into  a  wretched  prison.  I  think  it 
was  in  the  Tyrol.  He  sat  alone  there  in  all  his  wretch' 
edness,  forsaken  by  all  his  knights  and  his  courtiers, 
and  no  one  came  to  help  him.  I  do  not  know  if  in  those 
days  he  had  the  curd-white  face  with  which  Holbein 
represents  him  in  his  pictures.  But  that  prominent  un- 
der-lif>,  the  sign  of  a  disdain  for  mankind,  was  then 
undoubtedly,  more  protruding  than  in  his  pictures.  He 
had  good  cause  to  despise  the  people  who  fluttered  so 
devotedly  around  him  in  the  sunshine  of  his  good  for- 
tune,  and  who  left  him  solitary  in  his  obscurity  and 
distress.  Suddenly  the  prison  door  opened,  and  a 
cloaked  man  entered,  and  when  the  cloak  was  thrown 
aside  the  King  recognized  his  faithful  Kunz  Von  der 
Rosen,  the  court  fool.  This  man  brought  him  consola- 
tion  and  advice,  and  he  was  the  court  fool. 

"'Oh,  German  Fatherland!  Oh,  dear  German  peo- 
ple! I  am  thy  Kuns  Von  der  Rosen.  The  man  'whose 
peculiar  office  was  to  make  the  time  pass  for  thee,  and 
who  only  amused  thee  in  thy  good  days,  presses  into 
thy  prison  in  the  time  of  thy  misfortune.  Here  under 
my  cloak,  I  bring  thee  thy  strongest  sceptre,  thy  beau- 
tiful crown.  Do  you  not  recognize  me,  my  Emperor? 
If  I  cannot  free  thee,  at  least  will  I  comfort  thee,  and 
thou  shalt  have  some  one  near  thee  with  'whom  thou 
34 


canst  speak  of  thy  direful  sorrows,  one  who  loves 
thee  and  whose  best  jokes  and  best  blood  are  at  thy 
service.  For  thou,  my  people,  art  the  true  Emperor, 
the  rightful  lord  of  thy  land.  Thy  will  is  sovereign, 
and  far  more  legitimate  than  that  purple  vested  teiest 
notreplaisir,vshich  invokes  a  divine  right  without  any 
other  warrant  than  the  foolish  prating  of  tonsured 
jugglers.  Thy  will,  my  people,  is  the  only  rightful 
source  of  power.  Though  thou  liest  yet  in  chains,  thy 
right  will  assert  itself  at  length ;  the  day  of  thy  deliver* 
ance  approaches,  a  new  era  begins.  My  Emperor,  the 
night  is  ended,  and  out  there  beyond  the  rosy  glow 
of  morning  dawns!' 

" '  Kuns  Von  der  Rosen,  my  fool,  you  deceive  your' 
self.  You  perchance  mistake  a  glittering  axe  for  the 
sun,  and  the  morning  glow  is  nought  but  blood."1 

"  4No,  my  Emperor,  it  is  the  sun,  though  it  rises  in 
the  west.  For  six  thousand  years,  it  has  always  risen 
in  the  east;  it  is  now  full  time  it  should  change  its 
course/ 

"  'Kunz;  Von  der  Rosen,  my  fool,  thou  hast  lost  the 
bells  from  off  thy  red  cap,  and  it  has  now  so  strange 
an  appearance,  that  red  cap/ 

" '  Alas,  my  Emperor,  at  the  thought  of  my  misfor- 
tunes I  shook  my  head  so  furiously,  that  the  fool's 
bells  have  fallen  from  my  cap;  but  it  is  none  the 
worse  therefor."1 

"  'Kuns  Von  der  Rosen,  my  fool,  what  breaks  and 
"  35 


cracks  out  there? f 

"  'Be  still!  It  is  the  carpenter's  saw  and  axe,  and  the 
doors  of  your  prison  will  soon  be  open,  and  you  will 
be  free,  my  Emperor.' 

"  'Am  I  really  Emperor?  Alas,  it  is  the  fool  who  tells 
me  so!5 

"  'Oh,  do  not  sigh,  my  dear  master.  The  air  of  the 
prison  renders  you  fearful;  when  you  are  reinstated 
in  your  power  you  will  again  feel  the  hardy  Emperor ' 
blood  coursing  through  your  veins ;  you  will  be  proud 
as  an  emperor,  and  arrogant,  and  gracious,  and  smiling, 
and  ungrateful  as  princes  are.' 

"  'Kuns  Von  der  Rosen,  my  fool,  when  I  am  once 
more  free,  what  wilt  thou  do?' 

"  'I  will  then  sew  new  bells  on  my  cap/ 

"'And  how  shall  I  recompense  thy  fidelity?' 

"  'Ah!  dear  master,  do  not  order  me  to  be  killed!' v 

In  1831  Heine  took  a  long-meditated  step  and 
crossed  the  Rhine — the  Jordan  which,  he  said,  sepa' 
rates  the  sacred  Land  of  Freedom  (France)  from  the 
Land  of  the  Philistines  (Germany).  Beyond  the  at' 
traction  which  Paris  offered  as  the  center  of  art  and 
taste,  the  poet  was  actuated  by  other  reasons,  suffi' 
ciently  cogent,  in  leaving  the  fatherland.  I  have  noted 
how  his  prose  writings  had  brought  him  under  official 
censure.  It  was  not  at  all  unlikely  that  severer  meas- 
ures might  be  preparing  for  him.  He  had  received  a 

36 


hint,  he  tells  us,  that  there  were  irons  in  the  fortress  of 
Spandau  which  would  be  uncomfortable  wearing  in 
the  winter.  No  oysters,  of  which  he  was  fond,  were 
obtainable  there,  and  there  were  no  fowl,  except  flies, 
which  had  a  habit  of  falling  into  the  soup  and  thus 
making  it  more  substantial.  Moreover,  the  poet  was 
strongly  moved  by  the  July  revolution,  in  which 
Louis  Philippe,  the  Citizen  King,  succeeded  to  the 
Bourbon,  Charles  the  Tenth.  The  sun  in  Germany  be' 
gan  to  look  to  him  like  a  Prussian  cockade.  "Oh,  the 
grand  week  in  Paris! "  he  exclaims. "  The  spirit  of  liber' 
ty  which  spread  over  Germany  did,  to  be  sure,  some' 
times  overturn  the  night'lamps,  so  that  the  red  hang' 
ings  of  some  thrones  were  singed  and  the  gold  crowns 
grew  hot  under  burning  nightcaps.  But  the  old  catch' 
polls  in  the  pay  of  the  police  soon  brought  out  their 
fire'buckets,  and  they  snuff  about  more  watchfully 
than  ever  and  forge  stronger  chains.  And  I  notice  that 
invisible  walls,  thicker  than  ever,  are  rising  round  the 
German  people." 

On  the  second  day  of  May,  183 1  ,he  arrived  in  Paris, 
His  reputation  had  preceded  him,  and  gained  for  him 
the  entree  to  the  first  literary  circles.  Heine  was  then 
in  his  thirty -second  year,  in  the  full  vigor  of  health, 
and  so  handsome  as  to  win  from  Theophile  Gautier 
the  title  of  the  German  Apollo.  Among  the  notables 
who  welcomed  the  poet  to  Paris  were  Meyerbeer, 
George  Sand,  Gautier,  Michelet,  Dumas,  Sainte  Beuve, 

37 


Quinet,  Gerard  de  Nerval,  Ludwig  Boerne,  Schlegel, 
and  Humboldt.  Heine's  contentment  in  his  new 
sphere,  in  the  Capital  of  Intellect,  far  removed  from 
the  petty  German  censors,  is  best  described  by  his 
own  famous  phrase  to  Ferdinand  Hiller,  the  compos^ 
er,  returning  to  Germany.  "If  any  of  my  friends  ask 
about  me,"  he  said,  "say  I  feel  like  a  fish  in  water;  or 
rather,  when  one  fish  in  the  ocean  asks  another  how 
he  is  feeling,  he  gets  the  answer,  'I  feel  like  Heine  in 
Paris/" 

Heine,  a  born  man  of  letters,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
calls  him,  at  once  entered  upon  the  second  and  more 
important  period  of  his  literary  career.  His  letters  to 
German  newspapers,  his  reviews  and  other  prose  wri' 
tings,  put  him  in  possession  of  an  assured  income. 
There  was,  besides,  an  allowance  from  Uncle  Salo' 
mon— not  a  munificent  one,  indeed,  but  still  useful 
and  acceptable.  It  is  said  the  poet  was  also,  for  a  con' 
siderable  time,  in  receipt  of  a  pension  from  the  French 
Government,  and  the  story  lent  color  to  some  unwor" 
thy  aspersions  cast  upon  him  by  his  own  countrymen. 
The  fad:  seems  to  have  been  that  Heine  was  carried 
on  the  list  of  foreign  refugees  whom  the  French  Gov 
ernment  assisted,  through  motives  of  policy.  That  the 
poet  never  performed  a  sinister  service  nor  one  in  any 
way  impeaching  his  integrity  as  a  man  and  a  patriot, 
was  long  ago  made  clear  to  his  most  invidious  critics. 

In  the  account  which  he  drew  up  concerning  his 

38 


estrangement  from  Ludwig  Boerne — his  fellowcoun' 
tryman,  and  a  zealous,  if  intemperate,  patriot — Heine 
repudiated  the  charges  above  noted.  "Do  you  hold 
out  from  the  grave  an  imploring  hand?"  he  cries.  "I 
give  you  mine  without  malice.  See  how  white  and 
clean  it  is!  It  has  never  been  soiled  by  the  clasp  of  the 
mob  or  the  gold  of  the  people's  enemies." 

True,  as  it  is,  that  Heine  lacked  stableness  of  pur' 
pose,  he  at  least  never  abjured  his  liberal  creed.  Be' 
longing  to  the  aristocracy  of  mind,  he  was  yet  a  lead' 
er  and  a  prophet  in  the  great  democratic  movement. 
With  all  his  admiration  for  Napoleon,  he  was  wont 
to  say  that  he  followed  him  absolutely  only  up  to  the 
1 8th  Brumaire.  Heine's  political  vision  was  marvel' 
ously  keen  and  his  deductions  original  and  just.  Scarce' 
ly  any  portion  of  his  work  is  more  interesting  than 
the  political  reflections  and  observations  injected  into 
his  "History  of  the  Romantic  School,"  his  "Religion 
and  Philosophy  in  Germany"  and  sprinkled  over  his 
miscellaneous  writings. 

With  his  protean  humor  and  fatal  facility  of  satire, 
it  was  only  to  be  expected  that  sooner  or  later,  Heine 
would  give  mortal  offence  to  most  of  his  liberal 
friends,  as  well  as  many  of  his  compatriots.  The  affair 
with  Ludwig  Boerne,  which,  after  the  apostasy,  I 
would  rather  wipe  out  than  any  other  passage  in 
Heine's  life — drew  him  into  a  duel.  There  were  other 
quarrels,  hideously  vulgar,  and  ah,  how  unworthy  of 
C3  39 


the  high-strung  sensitive  poetf  These  are,  however, 
only  the  shadows  in  the  picture.  A  curious  student 
may  now,  perhaps,  by  an  effort  recall  the  names  of 
the  men  who  quarreled  with  Heine  on  the  score  of 
backsliding  in  his  political  or  religious  faith.  No  one 
can  estimate  the  immense  influence  which  his  writ- 
ings have  had  in  favor  of  liberal  ideas  in  Germany  and 
throughout  the  world.  Not  vainly  nor  with  undue 
emphasis  did  he  picture  his  life-long  battle  with  the 
foes  of  liberty  in  his  famous  poem  "Enfant  Perdu:" 

In  Freedom's  War,  of  "Thirty  Years'"  and  more, 
A  lonely  outpost  have  I  held — in  vain! 

With  no  triumphant  hope  or  priz^  in  store, 
Without  a  thought  to  see  my  home  again. 

I  watched  both  day  and  night :  I  could  not  sleep 
Like  my  well-tented  comrades  far  behind, 

Though  near  enough  to  let  their  snoring  keep 
A  friend  awake,  if  e'er  to  dose  inclined. 

And  thus,  when  solitude  my  spirits  shook, 

Or  fear — for  all  but  fools  know  fear  sometimes, — 

To  rouse  myself  and  them,  I  piped  and  took 
A  gay  revenge  in  all  my  wanton  rhymes. 

Yes !  there  I  stood,  my  musket  always  ready, 

And  when  some  sneaking  rascal  showed  his  head, 

My  eye  was  vigilant,  my  aim  was  steady, 
And  gave  his  brains  an  extra  dose  of  lead. 
40 


But  war  and  justice  have  far  different  laws, 
And  worthless  adts  are  often  done  right  well; 

The  rascals'  shots  were  better  than  their  cause, 
And  I  was  hit — and  hit  again,  and  fell! 

That  outpost  is  abandoned:  while  the  one 
Lies  in  the  dust,  the  rest  in  troops  depart; 

Unconquered — I  have  done  what  could  be  done, 
With  sword  unbroken,  and  with  broken  heart. 


In  the  year  1841  Heine  wrote  to  his  sister:  "On  the 
3ist  of  August  I  was  married  to  Mathilde  Cressentia 
Mirat,  with  whom  I  have  quarreled  every  day  these 
six  years."  The  poet's  union  with  the  amiable  French- 
woman contributed  to  the  small  sum  of  happiness  re' 
served  for  his  last  years.  A  terrible  and  insidious  dis* 
ease,  consumption  of  the  spinal  marrow,  showed  itself 
as  early  as  1845,  in  a  partial  paralysis,  which  gradually 
extended  over  the  whole  system.  Then  in  1848  began 
for  the  stricken  poet  the  tragedy  of  the  mattress  grave 
and  the  crown  of  an  unexampled  agony  was  added  to 
the  supreme  laurel  of  poesy.  Even  as  early  as  1846 
Heine  wrote  to  his  friend,  Heinrich  Laube:  "If  you 
do  not  find  me  here — faubourg  Poissoniere  No.  41 — 
please  look  for  me  in  the  cemetery  of  Montmartre — 
not  in  Pere  La  Chaise,  which  is  too  noisy  for  me." 

Our  Heinrich  was  surely  no  saint,  yet  his  awful 
sufferings  brought  to  light  in  his  character  unsuspecV 


ed  resources  of  firmness,  sweetness  and  resignation. 
His  chief  anxieties  were,  first  for  his  wife,  that  she 
should  not  be  left  by  his  death  without  a  provision; 
and  then,  for  his  old  mother  in  Germany,  the  "old 
woman  by  the  Dammthor,"  (a  gate  of  Hamburg)  that 
she  should  not  learn  of  his  terrible  misfortune.  His 
woeful  state  was  for  some  time  needlessly  embittered 
by  the  heartless  condudt  of  his  cousin  Carl,  who  re- 
fused to  pay  an  allowance  promised  by  Uncle  Salo- 
mon, now  dead,  but  which  the  latter  had  omitted  to 
provide  in  his  will.  Finally  Carl  yielded  the  point,  but 
he  first  made  terms  with  the  poet  relative  to  the  lat- 
ter's  treatment  of  the  Heine  family  in  his  memoirs;  and 
it  was  further  agreed  that  one-half  of  the  allowance 
should  be  continued  to  the  poet's  widow. 

Dark  as  was  Heine's  lot,  in  those  terrible  last  years, 
the  solace  of  his  genius  remained  to  him.  With  death 
at  his  pillow  and  the  sentient  world  of  light  and  life 
and  joy  shut  out  from  him,  his  genius  unconquered? 
yet  rose  to  new  heights — as  if  he  would  gather  fresh 
laurels  to  be  laid  on  his  bier.  "Like  a  dead  man,  the 
living  poet  was  nailed  in  his  coffin,"  writes  Theophile 
Gautier,  "but  when  we  bent  listening  over  him,  we 
heard  poetry  ringing  from  under  the  pall." 

But  the  poet  himself  is  the  best  witness  of  his  own 
agony.  Listen : 

"My  body  is  so  shrunken  away  that  hardly  any- 
thing but  my  voice  is  left,  and  my  bed  reminds  me  of 
42 


the  sounding  grave  of  the  enchanter  Merlin  in  the 
Broceliande  forest  in  Brittany,  under  the  tall  oaks, 
whose  tops  rise  like  green  flames  into  heaven.  Ahy 
friend  Merlin,  I  envy  you  those  trees,  with  their  cool 
breezes,  for  no  green  leaf  flutters  over  my  mattress 
grave  in  Paris. " 

Again:  "I  am  no  more  a  Hellene  of  jovial  life  and 
portly  person,  laughing  cheerfully  down  on  dismal 
Nazarenes — only  a  poor  deatlvsick  Jew ! " 

But  not  dead  yet,  no,  not  dead!  For  he  cries  out 
with  the  courage  of  immortal  mind — "Though  I  am 
sick  unto  death,  my  soul  has  not  suffered  mortal  hurt. 
It  is  a  drooping  and  athirst,  but  not  yet  withered! 
flower,  which  still  has  its  roots  firmly  planted  in  the 
ground  of  truth  and  love." 

And  the  terrible  likeness  he  found  for  his  affliction 
in  the  leper  of  the  "Limburg  Chronicle."  Hear  again: 
"In  1480,  throughout  all  Germany,  songs  were  sung 
and  whistled  that  were  sweeter  and  lovelier  than  any . 
that  were  ever  heard  before  in  the  German  land.  But, 
says  the  chronicle,  a  young  priest  who  had  the  leprosy 
had  written  these  songs,  and  had  withdrawn  himself 
from  all  the  world  into  a  desert.  These  lepers  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  thrust  out  from  all  human  intercourse, 
wandered  about,  wrapped  from  head  to  foot,  a  hood 
over  their  faces,  carrying  a  rattle  called  a  Lazarus  bell* 
with  which  they  gave  warning  of  their  approach,  so 
that  all  might  draw  aside  from  the  way.  Often  in  my 

43 


sad  visions  of  the  night,  I  think  I  see  before  me  the 
poor  priest  of  the  'Limburg  Chronicle/  my  brother 
in  Apollo,  and  his  suffering  eyes  gleam  strangely  from 
beneath  his  hood;  but  in  a  moment  he  glides  away, 
and,  like  the  echo  of  a  dream,  I  hear  the  sharp  tones 
of  the  Lazarus  bell." 

It  is  a  strange  pidture  called  up  by  the  sufferings  of 
the  poet — his  mind  triumphing  over  the  decay  of  his 
body — his  genius  marking  new  achievements — his 
mordant  wit  and  terrible  irony  active  to  the  last.  The 
ruling  passion,  strong  even  in  death,  was  never  more 
signally  illustrated.  His  last  word  is  a  jest:  "God  will 
pardon  me;  it  is  his  trade!" 

But  there  is  a  relief  to  the  tragedy  of  the  mattress 
grave,  which  were  else  too  painful  to  contemplate. 
The  cheerfulness  of  the  dying  man,  the  amazing  vigor 
of  his  mind,  the  undaunted  bravery  of  his  spirit — 
these  may  well  detain  us  for  a  brief  space  before  we 
turn  away  from  that  solemn  scene. 

To  the  doctor  who  asked  him  if  he  could  whistle, 
using  the  French  word  which  means  also  to  hiss  (siff* 
ler),  the  poet  gasped,  "Alas,  no!  not  even  a  comedy 
of  M.  Scribe's."  When  Berlioz,  the  composer  came 
to  see  him,  shortly  before  the  end,  the  poet  exclaimed, 
"What!  a  visitor!  Berlioz  was  always  original!"  And 
the  good-natured  Mathilde,  often  made  'the  sport  of 
his  playful  humor,  contented  herself  with  saying, 
placidly:  "Very  well,  my  dear,  have  your  joke,  but 
44 


you  know  you  cannot  do  without  me." 

Once  his  Nonotte,  as  he  called  her,  went  out  for  a 
drive,  and  was  gone  so  long  that  the  poet  pretended 
his  first  thought  was  that  she  had  eloped  from  her 
sick  husband  with  some  cunning  Lothario.  Then  he 
sent  the  nurse  to  her  room  to  see  if  Cocotte,  her  pet 
parrot,  was  there.  Yes,  indeed,  Cocotte  was  there,  and 
his  heart  beat  freely  again.  "For  without  Cocotte,"  he 
adds,  with  a  touch  of  sly  malice,  "the  dear  woman 
would  never  leave  me." 

Well,  she  never  did  leave  him,  and,  so  far  as  we 
know,  she  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing,  great  as  was 
her  burden.  Poor  Mathilde!  My  heart  goes  out  in 
sympathy  to  her  who  was  so  near  the  poet,  and  who 
is  treated  with  such  scant  courtesy  by  the  great  man's 
biographers.  I  believe  she  suffered  more  than  we 
know.  She  was  not  a  literary  woman,  and  she  could 
not  leave  the  world  a  memoir  of  that  mattress  grave 
tragedy,  as  did  another  woman  whose  presence  at  her 
husband's  bedside  brought  him  more  comfort  than  it 
brought  her.  She  could  only  retire,  at  odd  times, 'when 
her  care  was  not  required  by  the  sick  man,  and  talk 
to  her  parrot,  or,  perhaps,  cry  softly  to  herself. 

But  the  end  of  that  long  martyrdom  was  drawing 
near.  Now  the  poet  writes  or  dictates — for  his  sight 
is  nearly  gone  and  his  paralyzed  fingers  cannot  guide 
the  pen:  "My  body  suffers  much,  but  my  soul  is  as 
placid  as  a  lake,  and  sometimes  the  most  beautiful  sun' 

45 


rises  and  sunsets  are  reflected  in  it."  He  makes  his  will, 
his  latest  thought  anxious  for  poor  Mathilde:  "Fare' 
well,  thou  German  fatherland — land  of  riddles  and 
sorrows;  farewell,  you  kindly  French  people,  whom 
I  loved  so  much."  Thus  he  fell  asleep,  February  17, 
1856.  The  funeral  was  simple,  without  any  religious 
beremony,  as  the  poet  had  desired.  The  mourners 
were  Theophile  Gautier,  Alexandre  Dumas  the  eld- 
er, Paul  de  St.  Vidtor,  and  Mignet.  Dumas  wept ;  Gau- 
tier,  seeing  the  great  casket  and  the  shrunken  corpse, 
recalled  the  poet's  own  lines: 

i        Do  you  know  why  the  coffin 

So  heavy  and  wide  must  be? 
:         Because  in  it  I  laid  my  love, 

And  with  it  my  misery ! 
I 

The  poet  was  buried  in  Montmartre  cemetery,  ac- 
cording  to  his  wish.  Over  his  grave  is  a  monument 
surmounted  with  a  bust,  bearing  the  inscription, 
"Henri  Heine."  Under  the  name  of  the  Poet  appear 
the  significant  words  "Frau  Heine,"  and  on  the  sides 
of  the  stone  are  carved  Heine's  well  known  verses  in 
.German,  of  which  the  following  is  an  English  version: 

Where  shall  once  the  wanderer  weary 
Find  his  resting-place  and  shrine? 

Under  palm  trees  by  the  Ganges? 
Under  lindens  of  the  Rhine? 

46 


Shall  I  somewhere  in  the  desert 
Owe  my  grave  to  stranger  hands? 

Or  upon  some  lonely  seashore 
Rest  at  last  beneath  the  sands? 

'T  is  no  matter!  God's  wide  heaven 
Must  surround  me  there  as  here; 

And  as  death'lamps  o  'er  me  swinging, 
Night  by  night  the  stars  burn  clear. 

The  mother  who  had  brought  him  into  the  world 
which  he  filled  with  his  fame,  survived  him  three 
years. 

Heine,  in  his  fine  comparison  of  Goethe  and  Schil' 
ler,  wrote:  "Goethe's  poems  do  not  beget  deeds  as  do 
Schiller's.  Deeds  are  the  children  of  the  word  and 
Goethe's  fair  words  are  childless.  That  is  the  curse  of 
all  that  is  the  product  of  art  alone." 

Here  is  a  profound  truth  by  virtue  of  which  Heine 
himself  exercises  a  more  vital  influence  than  the 
ereign  of  German  literature.  Heine,  indeed,  more 
tently  represents  his  time,  his  aspiration,  its  revolt 
against  tradition  and  dogma  and  all  cramping  pre' 
scription.  Hence  Matthew  Arnold  calls  him  the  pal- 
adin of  the  modern  spirit.  The  poet  truly  describes 
himself  as  a  son  of  the  Revolution.  "Poetry  has  al' 
ways  been  with  me  only  a  sacred  plaything,"  he  says. 
"  I  have  ever  placed  but  slight  value  on  poetic  fame, 

47 


and  my  future  repute  troubles  me  not  at  all.  But  if  ye 
will  do  me  honor,  lay  a  sword  upon  my  coffin  lid,  for 
I  was  a  brave  soldier  in  the  war  of  the  liberation  of 
humanity!" 

Doubtless  it  required  more  courage  and  self  sacri' 
fice  to  live  the  life  that  Heine  lived — no  matter  how 
often  it  fell  below  the  mark — than  to  wear  a  gold 
chain  and  be  chancellor  at  Weimar.  It  is  a  great  dis- 
tinction to  be  a  great  poet.  Add  to  this  the  glory  of 
leading  and  inspiring  the  onward  march  of  human- 
ity— of  suffering  also  in  that  supreme  cause — and  the 
measure  of  earthly  greatness  is  filled. 

This  crowning  honor,  I  believe,  cannot  fairly  be 
refused  to  the  memory  of  Heinrich  Heine. 


Finis 


